


Ache and Pain

by firbolging



Series: You Talk a Good Game [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gift Giving, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:47:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firbolging/pseuds/firbolging
Summary: She cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him unbearably close. He felt like he might die, but she did not break her grip. Nor, he had to admit, did he want her to. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. She had one of hers pressing the new sketchbook into his shoulder blade, while the other held the back of his head steady. As though she knew how close he was to crumbling.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Series: You Talk a Good Game [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095134
Comments: 3
Kudos: 21





	Ache and Pain

Jester was smiling her quiet smile. Her private smile. Sometimes it accompanied tears, other times care. He was lucky, he knew, to be privy to it at all. This version, though, was the best and the worst. When she looked up at him with both wonder and wisdom in her eyes, seeming to shift in age in the space of a moment.

“Thank you, Caleb,” she said softly.

He was a fool for hoping, every time, that he would escape the grateful smile. He was a bigger fool for imagining, in his weaker hours, what that smile would taste like.

It would be easier to keep to himself. Of course it would. But then how could he repay her for her kindness? How could he let her know just how much she had done for him? For everyone. Everyone. That was how wide her heart spread.

His mouth was dry and his voice betrayed this fact as he mumbled, “Of course.” He gulped. “It’s what you deserve. Besides, I was at the store anyway so-”

She cut him off by throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him unbearably close. He felt like he might die, but she did not break her grip. Nor, he had to admit, did he want her to. He didn’t know what to do with his hands. She had one of hers pressing the new sketchbook into his shoulder blade, while the other held the back of his head steady. As though she knew how close he was to crumbling.

Just as he mustered the courage to place his own hands on the flat of her back, his palms gently grazing the fabric of her dress, she opened her mouth. Hot air assaulted his ear, carrying the most terrible words, “I love you, Caleb.”

He froze. His hands were still almost touching her. If he was grateful for anything in that first, panicked second, it was that his face was beyond her vision.

With a squeeze of his eyes, he knocked some sense into himself. It was how she’d offer him love from the Traveler. How she openly adored Nott and Beau, and even Yasha in her bloody absence. How she held up Fjord and handed over recipes to Caduceus without a second thought. It was, above all, an unbelievable honour.

He could not say it back. Not without giving himself away.

Instead he attempted to claw back to reality long enough to say, “You are too good, you know that?”

She slipped out of his arms and examined him for a moment. If his face had been red before, it must have been purple now. He imagined a vision of a bruise from chin to cheek. As though his coat ended, not at his collar, but at his ears.

Then, she laughed, and looked down. She might have briefly bitten her lip, but Caleb could not focus on anything solid.

“Goodnight, Caleb,” she said.

And why did she always have to say his name? Make his ribs turn traitor against the very things they were meant to protect.

Breathing and heartbeat both uneasy, he coughed and said, “You too, Jester.”


End file.
